Alex Kapranos on food and drink | The Guardianhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/alexkapranosonfoodanddrink
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Alex Kapranos: End of the roadhttp://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/aug/25/food.lifeandhealth1
In the last column charting his gastronomic adventures around the world with Franz Ferdinand, Alex Kapranos is appalled by British table manners in Prague<p>&quot;You can't possibly close! We're leaving tomorrow!&quot;</p><p>The stallholder glances at her.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/aug/25/food.lifeandhealth1">Continue reading...</a>Life and styleFood & drinkUK newsFranz FerdinandFri, 25 Aug 2006 10:56:02 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/aug/25/food.lifeandhealth1Alex Kapranos2006-08-25T10:56:02ZAlex Kapranos: Dumplings and pancakes at the Russian bar, Koreahttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/aug/04/foodanddrink
<p>We're wandering round the market in Incheon, Korea. Jean tells me that it's quiet today. The stallholders normally shout at you about how good their food is. Koreans are rather like Italians. We pass a stall loaded with dried fish - big ones staring from sunken eyes like marine mummies, tiny silver ones like metal filings in a sack.</p><p>Christine points at some microscopic shrimp. They are soaked in salt for a very long time so all the juice comes out, and the flavour is magnificent. We eat them with kimchi pancakes. I bring my face close to a bucket of clams in seawater. Semi-opaque tubes protrude from the shells; one gently breaks the surface like a periscope and shoots an arc of water at me.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/aug/04/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 04 Aug 2006 11:04:53 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/aug/04/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-08-04T11:04:53ZAlex Kapranos: Let me eat cake! I'm a rock star!http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jul/14/foodanddrink
<p>The twin-propeller plane looked as if it was made of Lego. It flew us from Gdansk to Edinburgh this morning, our equipment strapped to the floor with rope webbing between us and the pilot. In-flight catering was watery, cold, scrambled eggs and cold bacon. The fat had congealed into hard white tears on the edge of the plastic tray. So, I'm hungry as we drive up the muddy track that leads to the artists' enclosure at T in the Park under evil, July winter clouds. Our tour bus, 15 tonnes of tinted excess, passes the security checkpoint where I stood on a parched summer's day three years ago, holding my guitar in its protective bin bag, as the security guard, after checking his list of bands, said, &quot;Sorry son, I don't think you're playing - you shouldn't be in this area.&quot;</p><p>We don't have time to eat. We go straight to a press conference. It feels like February, but I keep my sunglasses on. It's not that I think it's cool. It's not. There are just too many eyes to make any meaningful contact with. A thousand flashes, a hundred questions. &quot;How does it feel to be back at T?&quot; I'm so hungry. We walk back through the rain to the catering tent. The caterers are Popcorn, who are always good. I glance at the blackboard, registering braised lamb shanks and five-spice duck with ginger greens, as I rush to the queue. I stand behind Edith Bowman and in front of Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who is holding a cute fiery-haired toddler in her arms.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jul/14/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 14 Jul 2006 12:02:56 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jul/14/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-07-14T12:02:56ZAlex Kapranos: A distinct characterhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jul/07/foodanddrink
<p>The Bura wind blows from the peaks of the Dalmatian Alps to the Adriatic, dry, cold and inescapable. It hisses through every crack and crevice, through winter and summer clothes and the gaps in the wooden walls of the smokehouses where Croatian prsut ham is cured. It is what gives the ham its distinct character. Although it is a cousin of serrano and prosciutto, it is unique, the lean and salty dry meat, not as exhausting on the tongue as its Italian and Spanish relatives. It is wrapped around a scallop on a swirl of polenta infused with Istrian black truffle, a potent and refined set of flavours. We have gone out for dinner in Zagreb with the guys who run Dancing Bear, our Croatian record label. &quot;The staff are a little nervous. They think you're opera stars,&quot; says Silvije. &quot;It's the name, Franz Ferdinand.&quot;</p><p>There is a noticeable Austro-Hungarian flavour to the beautiful city, a careless grace and grandeur like a supermodel nipping out to Lidl in her trackie bottoms and vest after a heavy night. I try to thank the waiter for the delicious home-made beetroot-stuffed ravioli made from poppy seed flour. &quot;Hvala.&quot; It comes out more like &quot;Hoovallurgh&quot;. Everyone laughs. My accent is bad. I try again. No. It does not come naturally.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jul/07/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 07 Jul 2006 00:43:46 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jul/07/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-07-07T00:43:46ZAlex Kapranos: Beware the White Widowhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/30/foodanddrink
<p>Workmen are re-cobbling Maria Straat, sweeping grit between the stones. They wear roller-blader's kneepads and thick wooden clogs, the toe-points scuffed flat and rough. The faint tick of our back wheels follows us across Utrecht to the canal. It is a small university city, like a pretty miniature Amsterdam without the red light tourism. The counter-culture is high street: a few innocuous coffee shops politely selling pre-rolled joints, their heavy-headed customers sedately watching the World Cup. A goal. A silent goal. Beware the White Widow.</p><p>We lock our bikes with a hundred others above the Oudegracht - the old canal that runs north to south through the city which is lined with cafes and restaurants, and walk down the wooden steps to De Oude Muntkelder Pannen Kuiken Huis: The Old Coin Cellar Pancake House.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/30/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 30 Jun 2006 00:52:49 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/30/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-06-30T00:52:49ZAlex Kapranos: Mussels in Malibuhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/23/foodanddrink
<p>I love nature. My legs and arse ache from the saddle, but I am elated. This is the first time I've ridden a horse, yet cantering across the canyon in Malibu felt like I'd ridden them for thousands of years. Pelicans fly low over the Pacific Ocean. Three dolphins leap through the waves, twisting in the air like kids playing on a trampoline. The outcrop where I stand is covered in wild mussels, wet-black like patent leather bubbles on the salt-carved rock. A wave thuds suddenly to an end and foam swirls around my knees. The wooden sign tells me that it is an offence to eat these mussels or sell them to anyone else who may want to eat them. They are probably poisonous, loaded with sewage juice or heavy metals, but they look so gorgeous clinging to the rocks, wet and slightly parted, as if inviting me to gently nibble the button of flesh peeping out. Haze - it's all a beautiful haze; I'm a delirious kid from Glasgow who can't believe where he is.</p><p>We get into the car and drive back a couple of miles to the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe. Fading photos tell stories of handsome lifeguards racing into pre-war surf and beautiful girls in heavy woollen bathers lined along the sand like a Busby Berkeley chorus line. We sit outside at a plastic table. The bus boy brings us a portion of mussels and fries that is obscene in size - a bucket of each. A flock of 40 gulls land on the furniture around us. Their amber eyes consider us. They consider the fries. They consider us to be no danger and a big guy flaps on to the table, vicious and ungainly. The beak is like a yellow hooked fisherman's knife with a broken hole behind a blood red splat. Eight fries in one snap. This is one big bird who does not give a damn. This guy is scared of nothing: certainly not me. I clap my hands and he cocks his head as if to say &quot;Oh, Purleeease&quot;, before snapping another beakful. I throw a cardboard carton of milk towards him. He catches it in his beak and swallows it. His pals watch him, waiting for their turn. This is like Hitchcock's Bodega Bay, but a little more sinister. We grab our mussels, fries and fly inside to the safety of the man-made world. I hate nature. </p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/23/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 23 Jun 2006 00:54:24 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/23/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-06-23T00:54:24ZAlex Kapranos: Waiter, waiter...http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/16/foodanddrink
<p>At Mr Chow, Beverly Hills, they don't like to give you a menu. &quot;I could go down to the vault, see what I find,&quot; sniffs the waiter. He has the preppy perfectionism of a young Patrick Bateman. We let him choose what we'll eat. The foul-mouthed heir to a billion dollars of oil money sits at the table on our right. It's the birthday of a woman at the table on our left. But hard to guess which birthday. It could be anything between 40 and 80; her face is a rigid surgical mask: any expression not sliced away by the scalpel has been frozen with Botox. A late-night chat show host sits opposite. My friend tells me that on a celebrity scale of 1-10, this is a 2: in other words no Clooney, Cruise or Spielberg.</p><p>The waiter tells us he's bringing a Special Surprise. In the meantime it's show time. An older Chinese chef wheels a linen-clad trolley into the centre of the room and raises a huge mound of dough above his head. He stretches it, then slaps it off the table in a violent cloud of flour. He stretches it into a long sausage, doubles it and twirls it around like a lasso yo-yo. He repeats this until he has tangle of noodles held in the air to an explosion of applause. A couple of minutes later we're eating them. They're Mr Chow's special noodles with a meat sauce that tastes like bolognese laced with soy sauce. Then comes the Special Surprise. It's frogs' legs. They're battered and fried with chilli. They must have been muscular frogs, as there's lots of flesh on the greenish bones. What do frogs taste of? Well, these ones taste of chilli. The best thing we are brought is the duck, which is as soft and rich as molten chocolate. Everything tastes so good you can't tell what it is.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/16/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 16 Jun 2006 10:27:50 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/16/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-06-16T10:27:50ZAlex Kapranos: Azeitao cheesehttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/09/foodanddrink
<p>I climb the steep Cal&ccedil;ada da Gl&oacute;ria by the funicular railway tracks, my leather soles slipping off marble cobbles that are like uneven cubes of volcanic ice. One foot goes and I grab the broken rail. This dramatic urban gorge slices through the old town of Lisbon. Graffiti covers the walls in spaghetti swirling scrawls of spray-can anarchist colour. I meet Parker outside Alfaia. The aluminium chair is on such a gradient that, as I sit, I slide into its back.</p><p>A selection of cheese, ham and olives is brought to the table. It is worth going to Lisbon just to eat Azeitao cheese. The ancient, muslin-wrapped rind looks like the skin of an Egyptian mummy. The top has been sliced off and a tiny spoon stands in the runny interior. It is made in Portugal's highest mountains from raw, unpasteurised ewe's milk, using Cardoon thistle instead of rennet. We dribble it like honey over the fresh bread, the sweet pungency dilating our nostrils as it coats the roof of our mouths. A purple plate of octopus appears, peppered with a mild chilli. Parker's dad is a botanist and he tells me about the Scoville scale, which is used to grade the heat of chillies. A jalapeno is around 3,000, a bell pepper is zero. What we're eating would just make a couple of hundred.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/09/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 09 Jun 2006 10:15:08 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/09/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-06-09T10:15:08ZAlex Kapranos: Lost in translationhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/02/foodanddrink
<p>Cologne sets itself aside by the way they serve beer. In the rest of Germany it froths over the lips of heavy dimpled steins, like thick glass buckets with a handle on the side. K&ouml;lsch is served in a slender tumbler called a K&ouml;lsch-Stange that looks more like a test tube. I'm drinking with Parker, our sound engineer, on a bench outside the Pfaffen Brauerei on the corner of the cobbled Heumarkt. It's drizzling and full inside, so we look for somewhere else to eat.</p><p>The Brauhaus Sunner Im Walfisch is also full. The head waiter twirls the handles of his moustache, waving four plates of sausages and potato. &quot;They came from Denmark. I am sorry.&quot; He squeezes us into a heaving bench below a wrought-iron two-headed Byzantine eagle clutching a light bulb in each claw.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/02/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 02 Jun 2006 10:03:23 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/02/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-06-02T10:03:23ZAlex Kapranos: Bookshop foodhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/26/foodanddrink
<p>A blind man with wrap-arounds, pinched cheeks and a beanie hat hooks his stick over the crook of his arm and grips the granite wall on the corner of High Vennel and High Street, as if the icicle stings of rain will wash him into the iron murk of the Solway Firth. Wigtown is Scotland's &quot;book town&quot;. The Box of Frogs sells kids' books. The Cauldron is culinary. The window of Tide Line is lined with titles such as So You Want To Go Shooting?, The Gun Punt Adventure and The Complete Gundog.</p><p>I'm hunting for a book about a Galloway character with nasty eating habits. In the 16th century, Sawney Bean and his incestuous clan feasted on the flesh of travellers they abducted on the west coast road to Glasgow. Limbs, like sickening hams, hung from the roof of their cave. I don't know how much is legend and how much is fact, but I have a vivid memory of a zealous guide on a primary school trip around Edinburgh Old Town describing their capture and execution in the Tolbooth - particularly the bit where, before absolute amputation, the men's &quot;privy members&quot; were cut off and flung into the flames of the fires where the women were being burned alive.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/26/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleUK newsFood safetyFri, 26 May 2006 00:12:16 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/26/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-05-26T00:12:16ZAlex Kapranos: The antithesis of chain coffee shopshttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/19/foodanddrink
<p>Feathery fuzz blows from fresh-leaved trees behind me in Soho Square. I walk along Frith Street past William Hazlitt's house and the tattoo parlour. The street is sticky from the night before. The puddles are opaque and milky. Ronnie Scott's is having a facelift at 47. The cast of Mary Poppins flow through the stage door of the Prince Edward Theatre. Cafe tables rest rickety on the grubby pavement outside Little Italy, Bar Italia and Nino's. A woman in Chanel sunglasses and a fleece cups her hand around her cappuccino for warmth. A traffic warden is giving a fire engine a parking ticket.</p><p>I turn on to Old Compton Street, dodging the men in aprons and scowls pushing overloaded hand trolleys. To the left on Greek Street, grey net curtains blow limply in the spring breeze behind the unlit lightboxes. To the right is Caf&eacute; Bertaux.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/19/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkUK newsLife and styleFood safetyFri, 19 May 2006 09:17:44 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/19/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-05-19T09:17:44ZAlex Kapranos: Heavenly hamburgershttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/12/foodanddrink
<p>I've been lying on my back, staring at the peeling ceiling of my flat for a couple of hours. There was a leak. A numbing sense of lethargy overwhelms me when I come off tour. My languid veins miss the fizz of adrenaline that they're served as I walk onstage each night. So I lie on the floorboards. Staring at the peeling ceiling.</p><p>I jump up from torpor. I split open my overloaded suitcase. Trousers stiff with desert dust and shirts damp with stage sweat leap out. Among the jumble is a crumpled paper cup, sticky with traces of root beer. Red palm trees circle the lip of the cup: silhouettes of the real ones in the In N Out Burger parking lot on the freeway between Palm Springs and Los Angeles. I turn the cup over with my toe. There, under the base, is the secret message: John 3:16. Nothing indicates its presence or draws you to it. It's there for you to discover - &quot;For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.&quot;</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/12/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkUK newsLife and styleFood safetyMinimum wageFri, 12 May 2006 09:20:13 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/12/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-05-12T09:20:13ZAlex Kapranos: The Formosa cafehttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/05/foodanddrink
<p>I gaze through the railway carriage window, past the banana leaves to the stepped Deco parapet of the stark white studio lot opposite. Sixty years ago, Sam Goldwyn stood astride the parapet in the vicious mid-afternoon California sun and yelled at his writers to drop their cocktails and get back to work. I am in the Formosa Cafe on the corner of Formosa Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywoood.</p><p>The lot facing us was the United Artists Studio and the mob-run cafe gained a reputation there as the place where you could cash your pay cheque, order a cocktail and place a bet. Lana Turner supposedly dated the gangster proprietor.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/05/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleUK newsFood safetyThu, 04 May 2006 23:37:21 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/may/05/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-05-04T23:37:21ZAlex Kapranos: The kluski pastahttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/apr/28/foodanddrink
<p>The beat of the World's Most Dangerous Polka Band bursts through the swing doors of the Polka Lounge. Lu Sneider takes her place at the piano. She's played every evening of the 40 years that Nye's Polonaise Room, Minneapolis, has been open. She knows more than 500 songs and anyone can sing along with her if they feel up for it. A couple of Polish granddads in anoraks join her. They beam beatifically as they wail and wander through a tune. It may be Delilah. Red swirls of carpet flow wall-to-wall like molten lava. The furniture is vinyl chesterfield - gold sparkle booths and burgundy wing-backed bar stools. Most of the waiting staff are over 50 and wear black bowling shirts, but the wooden wall panelling feels more bowling club than bowling alley. Heavy, dark glass-studded lampshades hang from antique-effect beams jutting from the ceiling tiles. It's extremely atmospheric, as if David Lynch, Mike Leigh and Krzysztof Kieslowski built a place to shoot movies together.</p><p>The most striking waitress leans against the bar. Her hair is a bouffant puff of white candyfloss with a midnight black fringe. Oversized specs magnify her eyes to massive pools that survey the room with mildly amused detachment. David, our waiter, brings us Polish appetisers: pierogies (filled dough parcels), a mound of sauerkraut, a jumbo sausage and dense potato dumplings. The star bite is the kluski pasta: thick egg noodles with poppy seeds and sour cream that have a texture that is as satisfying to bite as bubble-wrap is to pop. Minneapolis is a brewing city and we all order pints of Grain Belt Premium.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/apr/28/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 28 Apr 2006 00:08:21 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/apr/28/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-04-28T00:08:21ZAlex Kapranos: It came from the easthttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/apr/21/foodanddrink
<p>I can't work out where the food is from. Maybe the Middle East? There's yoghurt, parsley, lentils and lemon on the menu, but also a long list of vodkas. Maybe Ukrainian? Georgian? Inside, a couple are rubbing their bellies like cartoon cats that snacked on a mouse. They beckon me in with vigorous waves. I may as well go. I have been walking along Queen Street, Toronto, and I am hungry. I have come from the Done Right Inn, a homely dive bar with Dead Kennedies on the jukebox. The beaten sofas would have been a great Sunday refuge, but they ran out of food. I walk into Banu and feel I have crashed a party only to discover that I was a guest all along.</p><p>&quot;Come in! Have a seat! It's our first day!&quot; It is their first day of business. &quot;Do we look nice? What do you think? You didn't know the type of food? It's Persian!&quot; I love Iranian food. It is delicate and exciting. My Aunt Soori and my friend Andrew's mother cooked it for me when I was a kid. They both left Iran after the revolution. So did the siblings who run Banu. They were toddlers at the time.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/apr/21/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 21 Apr 2006 09:27:26 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/apr/21/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-04-21T09:27:26ZAlex Kapranos: Eating habitshttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/31/foodanddrink
<p>I wake to the smell of my band mates' farts. We live on a bus. We're travelling from LA to Tucson and have stopped at the Grand Canyon. The Bright Angel Lodge is made of logs stacked on the edge. &quot;Are the portions big?&quot; I ask. We're in America. It's a stupid question. &quot;Everything's as big as the canyon.&quot;</p><p>Kelly Clarkson is on the radio. Our pints of mud-brown Colorado Fat Tyre taste of Cadbury's chocolate and smell of Kraft cheese. Everyone is moaning about dry throats from the ubiquitous air conditioning. A flight attendant suggested to Andy that he hang a wet towel over the back of a chair. &quot;It was sopping wet when I hung it up, bone dry in the morning.&quot; Paul reckons he wouldn't be able to sleep for wondering whether it was dry yet. Then he yells. Boiling cream cheese from a deep-fried Jalapeno has landed on his lap.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/31/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 31 Mar 2006 11:47:28 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/31/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-03-31T11:47:28ZAlex Kapranos: Guilty pleasureshttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/24/foodanddrink
<p>March 20. It's my 34th birthday. For a treat, I have gone to Les Halles, Anthony Bourdain's patch of Paris in Manhattan. I have wanted to go for six years, since I read Kitchen Confidential when I was working as a chef. I loved how he captured the parallels of rock'n'roll debauchery in the back kitchen and back stage. I have come for his Rossini: the most decadent burger in NYC. Ground and charred to order, topped with a tranche of home-made foie gras and a reduction of red-wine-and-black-truffle sauce to dip it into. When I read Bourdain's book I, like most commis chefs, couldn't afford to eat the food I sent out every night. Now I'm ordering this delicious opulence seasoned with cruelty. Do I feel guilty? Do I feel sorry for the commis behind the net-curtained kitchen window? Am I glad to temporarily not be skint? Do I question my personal morals?</p><p>I think about my fifth birthday. I think about the cake, a glorious creation of my mother's, the centrepiece of the feast in the front room of our Sunderland semi. It must have been a Saturday as I can hear the Roker Park roar in the background as I wait with unsuppressable excitement for the guests to arrive. I have crept in among the balloons, streamers, wrapped parcels and tailless donkey. I evaluate the banquet. Sausage rolls - horrible. Crisps - nice. Sandwiches - horrible. Fizzy drink - nice. Cake - amazing! It's so blue! That is the best colour ever! That's why it's my favourite. The icing is so heavy it looks like there is no cake, just icing. I like this. In yellow piping there is a fat 5. I WANT IT NOW! I notice my finger. I can't control it. It pokes into the lower curl of the number. It prods and scoops yellow into my mouth. Wonderful sensation of joy rushing happiness to the brain. More probing. More delight. It looks less like a five. There's a fleeting slice of ice and moral dilemma: fear of the SMACK. Logic leads me. If there's no five on the cake, no one will know anything's wrong. I finish the yellow, leaving a smudged sea of blank blue.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/24/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 24 Mar 2006 03:14:13 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/24/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-03-24T03:14:13ZAlex Kapranos: Donut delightshttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/17/foodanddrink.shopping1
<p>&quot;You dumb donuteatin' cop!&quot; Officer Constantine cuffs Officer Kuchner playfully on the back of the head. Kuchner is flirting in Polish with the girl behind the counter of the Peter Pan Donut and Pastry Shop on Manhattan Boulevard, Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She wears a green A-line dress with pastel-pink cuffs and collar. Heavy lashes flicker over her eyes. Constantine is tall. Cheekbones strike boldly from a proud handsome African- American face. He takes his cap off. A photo of his mother is under the cracked plastic label inside. It is shift change at the 94th precinct on Messerole around the corner.</p><p>I order an Old Fashioned and a coffee: $1.70. Officers Sanchez and Suarez show each other pictures of their kids. Heavy flashlights and dull metal pistols hang from their belts. The lashy waitress fills my cup. It is identical to eight million others in delis across the city: blue with a Grecian urn on the side and &quot;We Are Happy To Serve You&quot; written in Hellenic script. That's not always true. She likes my accent. I like hers more - Polish/Brooklyn vowels singing the unknown. Green plastic letters punctuated by shamrocks announce St Patrick's Day. To Insure [sic] Freshness All Our Products Are Baked On The Premises. Suffocating the ventilation grill, stringy dust hangs like a sheepskin rug from the lowered ceiling. A guy with a white moustache is complaining that he wanted a jelly donut, not a ring. Lashy points to the purple injection hole. A stunned jaw drops from a white moustache. &quot;Hey ... Something new! Jelly in a ring!&quot; He bites. &quot;That's good. That is good!&quot; He gives his wife a sugar-dusted moustache kiss. She grimaces, but her eyes are happy as she squeezes his arm.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/17/foodanddrink.shopping1">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 17 Mar 2006 10:29:28 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/17/foodanddrink.shopping1Alex Kapranos2006-03-17T10:29:28ZAlex Kapranos: Carnivore's cornerhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/10/foodanddrink
<p>If the stallholders from the duff end of Portobello Road infiltrated the rather more rarified Borough, it would feel similar to St Elmo market in Buenos Aires. Its Victorian grandeur is crumbling, the marble counters cracked and stained, the flow of fresh produce clogged by dusty bric-a-brac, like effluent silting up a river. Diego points to a stall and tells me that when he was a kid and came here with his mother, there would be 50 crates of live chickens. She would choose one and - constricted gurgling accompanied by finger across throat - it would be ready to take home. The chickens have gone and although there are a few greengrocers and butchers left, they occupy a tiny ghetto among the old telephones, stuffed cats, broken toys, and used mate shells.</p><p>&quot;Todo bicho que camina va a parar al asador.&quot; Anything that walks ends up on the grill. It is a euphemism that summarises the Argentinian attitude to culinary and sexual encounters - I have no preference, as long as it's meat.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/10/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkLife and styleFri, 10 Mar 2006 01:00:45 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/10/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-03-10T01:00:45ZAlex Kapranos: Big fat pighttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/03/foodanddrink
<p>Brown stickiness drips over the edge of the cone on to my fingers. I need both hands to hold it. Behind me there's a boring statue. Boring old buildings are all around. The boring road is bright white marble, unbearably hot under my sandals. I'm five, in Ephesus. My parents want to educate me. I'm not interested. I've never tasted ice-cream like this before. Not only does it taste of chocolate, but there are bits of chocolate in it too. </p><p>Now it's a yellow stickiness that drips over the edge. I catch it with my tongue before it hits my fingers and instantly remember Ephesus. Jesus stretches his arms into the haze. Sugar Loaf looms towards me. Copacabana curls below. Rio. By the sea-oh. I've never tasted ice-cream like this before. Not only does it taste of sweetcorn, but there are bits of sweetcorn in it: chewy flecks of skin in the deep yellow ice. Vultures sweep silent arcs beneath the cable car. </p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/03/foodanddrink">Continue reading...</a>Food & drinkUK newsLife and styleFood safetyFri, 03 Mar 2006 11:38:12 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/03/foodanddrinkAlex Kapranos2006-03-03T11:38:12Z